


All that was me (is gone)

by sparrow30



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dark Steve, Emotional Manipulation, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, M/M, Minor Violence, No happy endings, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Trash Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 14:17:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6569575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow30/pseuds/sparrow30
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky doesn't believe that Steve really is who he says he is.</p>
<p>It's getting harder for Steve to believe it too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All that was me (is gone)

When Steve stumbled blearily into the kitchen at 7am to find Bucky already sitting at their breakfast table, he almost walked straight into the counter in shock.

 

It wasn't the early hour that had Steve pulling up short, but the fact that Bucky was there at all. In the four months since Bucky had come in from the cold, Steve could count on two hands the number of times he had seen Bucky leave the bedroom. No matter how often Steve insisted that Bucky had the full run of the apartment, Bucky seemed perfectly content to hole up in his room unless explicitly summoned.  After the first few times Steve had poked his head in to find Bucky in the exact same position - perched on the edge of the bed, hands folded in his lap, eyes straight ahead - he had started calling to Bucky from the other side of the door whenever he needed to talk to him.

 

Trying to ignore Bucky’s newfound independence - Sam's advice to not make a scene over perceived improvements ringing loud in his ears - he took his time making coffee and pouring a bowl of cereal before sitting down at the table, careful to leave at least one chair's distance between the two of them.

 

"Morning Buck," he said with a casual indifference that in no way reflected his pounding heartbeat. Bucky gave no indication that he had even heard Steve.

 

The silence, that wasn't surprising at all. Bucky only ever responded to direct questions now, in that clipped, rusty voice of his that sounded almost painful in its disuse. The rest of the time he was silent as a ghost, not even his footsteps making a sound.

 

It was the silence that Steve found the hardest. The Bucky he had grown up with had been a bundle of noisy energy, always with a new story or anecdote to share with his Stevie. The only time Bucky had ever been quiet was at church - the threat of a tongue lashing from his Ma and restricted playtime was usually enough to keep him in check for at least the length of the service - and even then Steve had usually been able to make him slip up just by throwing a face at him from across the aisle.

 

It had been no different during the war, even if the stories had turned darker, more morbid as the months dragged on. A silent Bucky brought back memories of hours camped out in foxholes way beyond enemy lines. A silent Bucky was the precursor to all manner of horrific sounds Steve knew he would never forget as long as his unnaturally long lifespan kept him around. The screams of the wounded and the dying were always so loud to his ears after the long hours of Bucky’s unnatural silence.

 

He dragged himself out of those memories piece by piece, until he was no longer ankle-deep in mud and blood in northern France, but back in his kitchen in Brooklyn, sitting next to his best friend who seemingly hadn't noticed that Steve had temporarily checked out. He shook his head roughly to rid himself of the last of the cobwebs from 1944, then cast around for something, anything else to occupy his attention.

 

Bucky was hunched over the table, and it was only then Steve noticed that he was writing in a thick black notebook about the size of one of the placemats scattered across the table. Like all of Bucky's actions nowadays, his movements were careful and precise - another noted difference that Steve tried desperately hard not to dwell on.

 

"What're you writing there?" Steve asked, trying to keep his voice neutral despite his curiosity.

 

Bucky slowly looked up from his page, his pen motionless in his metal hand, fixed just above the curl of the last letter. His expression was completely unreadable as he tilted his head and stared Steve down. Steve resisted the urge to fidget as he returned the stare; he didn't think his question had been that unreasonable.

 

"Handlers do not have clearance to read Asset mission reports." The rasped words held a hint of derision, like this was something Steve should have known all along.

 

"Oh, Buck," Steve tried and failed to keep the pain out of his voice. He instinctively reached out to grasp Bucky's human hand resting on the table, before jerking awkwardly backwards when he realized what he was doing. "We've been over this, I'm not your handler. I'm Steve. Stevie. Your friend. Remember?"

 

The corner of Bucky's mouth twisted into something that looked uncomfortably like disdain, but his voice was as monotonous as ever when he replied " _Steve’s_ don't have clearance to read Asset mission reports," before turning back to the notebook in front of him, Steve left all but ignored.

 

He didn't think he had ever hated the sound of his own name more.

 

* * *

_**Date** : 16th February 2016  
_ _ **Mission** : B62X447  
_ _ **Location** : Brooklyn, United States  
_ __ **Handler** : Agent Rogers

 

_The body has been fully healed and operational for 92 days. Location provides the Asset with adequate sustenance and training facilities to achieve and maintain optimal physical parameters following injury. While waiting on further instructions from command, the Asset is using downtime to educate the newest Handler on proper Asset handling protocols, which currently appear to be woefully lacking._

* * *

 

By the 6 month mark, Bucky had started to venture outside of his self-imposed prison more regularly, and their days had started to fall into something of an awkward routine. Bucky was still quiet as the grave, but his actions had started to become less reactionary and more focused. And if Steve caught him staring intently at him out of the corner of his eye more than once, well, surely that could only mean good things right?

 

One evening, when they were sitting eating dinner (in silence, always in silence) Steve broached the delicate subject of guests.

 

"I was thinking of inviting Natasha and Clint over tomorrow, you okay with that Buck?" Steve toyed with the corner of his napkin as he spoke. He was so, so grateful to have Bucky back. Wouldn't change it for the world, of course. But he still didn't feel comfortable leaving Bucky on his own in the apartment, and God knows what would happen if they both ventured outside, which meant Bucky's isolation had effectively become Steve's isolation for the last 180 days. Steve was getting slightly hysterical about the idea of never seeing another human in the flesh ever again.

 

Bucky looked up from the food he had been shovelling into his mouth with the cool efficiency of someone who was simply refuelling. "Will the Asset be required to... entertain?" he asked, clearly switching out the last word at the last minute.

 

"Entertain... what.... do you mean like juggling?" Steve asked, brain struggling to work out what Bucky was implying but clearly not saying. Bucky made that disappointed face he did whenever he thought Steve should have acted in a certain way but hadn’t - the only face he seemed to make nowadays other than casual indifference. Steve rushed to clarify.

 

"No, no of course not. You don't even have to join us if you don't want to, you can stay in your room if you'd prefer. Not that I'm saying you have to stay in your room, I know the guys are really keen to meet you and... " Steve clamped his mouth shut and took a deep breath. "This is all coming out wrong. What I mean is that it's your choice Bucky, always will be."

 

Bucky regarded Steve with that long searching gaze of his, and Steve had a slightly panicked moment where he wondered if Bucky even knew what choice meant any more; God knows he hadn't exactly utilized it in any sense since coming in from the cold. Eventually Bucky nodded and returned to shovelling food into his mouth, pointedly ignoring Steve as he struggled to contain his grin.

 

* * *

 

There was a lot of noise when Natasha and Clint arrived, mostly from Clint, obviously, and the sudden cacophony was almost too loud to Steve's ears after the months and months of silence. There was a moment of awkwardness when Steve opened the door, trying not to flinch at the way Bucky practically materialized next to him, eyes cold and assessing and every inch the Winter Soldier as he took stock of this potential enemy about to enter their little bubble, but Steve forced a smile and pointedly stepped to the side, waving his friends in.

 

"Hey guys, come on in," he said brightly, and if his voice veered just slightly too close to Captain America at his most patriotic, nobody chose to comment on it.

 

Clint didn't need telling twice, barrelling in past Steve and Bucky as he headed straight for the living room.

 

"Hey man, long time no see," he called back to them, seemingly willfully oblivious to the tension practically radiating off Bucky’s figure - although as with everything else Clint did, Steve suspected this was a far more calculated act than he let on. He disappeared out of sight behind the doorframe and Steve could practically see him making himself at home on the sofa, already reaching for the chips he had placed (then removed and replaced. Twice) on the little coffee table in the middle of the room. "Oh and nice to meet you, is it Bucky? Or do you go by James now?" he called back out to the hallway where the rest of them were still standing.

 

Despite the question Clint clearly didn't expect an answer, which was just as well because Bucky and Natasha seemed to be engaged in some sort of silent conversation from either side of the threshold. Cold grey eyes clashed with steely green, and suddenly Steve felt horribly like he was intruding on something private. A sudden bout of jealousy washed over him, followed swiftly by crushing guilt.

 

Finally, after a long moment, Natasha muttered something in Russian. Bucky’s back snapped ramrod straight, and he bit back a swift retort before nodding once and stepping aside to let Natasha in. Natasha slowly stepped inside, her eyes not leaving Bucky's as she silently clasped Bucky's metal bicep before following Clint into the living room.

 

Steve followed close behind, trying not to think too hard about how that was more than he had touched Bucky in weeks, or how Bucky’s voice sounded more fluent in Russian than it ever did in English nowadays.

 

* * *

 

Despite his brief bout of Russian, however, it appeared that Bucky's definition of free will was to follow Steve around all night long like the world's most menacing bodyguard - which honestly Steve couldn't help but find darkly hilarious since if there was a way to kill Captain America, neither he nor the the multitude of bad guys this universe had to offer had managed to find it yet.

 

Despite Steve's constant reassurances that it was okay to sit down, Bucky insisted on standing behind the sofa Steve sat on, body completely motionless but eyes on constant alert. After his third attempt at gentle persuasion was met with stony silence, Steve gave up and turned his attention fully to his guests. He hated himself for it but, well, it had been so very long after all.

 

Eventually the three of them started to relax, despite the circumstances, and soon they were chatting and laughing as if it hadn't been over half a year since they last saw one another. Steve had almost forgotten that Bucky was even there by the time they moved to the kitchen to start preparing dinner. He set himself up on one side of the room washing potatoes in the sink, Natasha leaning on the counter next to him while Clint insisted on jumping up on sit on the counter that ran against the opposite wall - what that man had against floors Steve would never understand.

 

And Bucky, Bucky hovered. Crowding Steve without ever stepping closer than arm’s length. Steve hated it, hated the way he felt uncomfortable around his best friend, hated the way that a foot of space felt intimidating when before (before the train, before the ice, before everything) they had rarely not been connected by some small gesture.

 

Most of all he hated Hydra for taking his friend, his buddy, his Bucky and returning this shell in his place.

 

Steve drained the potatoes and dumped the colander on the counter next to the sink. He leaned over to grab a chopping board, then grinned when one in particular caught his eye. Plucking it out of the pile he called over his shoulder, "Hey, Clint, chuck me a knife will ya?"

 

He heard Clint chuckle "Sure thing buddy," and then the air next to his ear whistled. Without turning around he lifted the chopping board just in time for the knife to wedge itself right in the heart of the bullseye painted in the center of the board. It had been a novelty gift eons ago (some sort of dig from Sam over how he couldn't help being a walking target), and he and Clint had spent weeks perfecting that particular party trick, one Steve was quite proud of if he was perfectly honest.

 

He didn't even have time to put the chopping board down before he heard the crash.

 

Steve spun round in shock at the noise, letting out a strangled yelp as he watched Bucky haul Clint off the counter, slamming him against the adjoining wall with a hand around his neck. Clint’s feet scrabbled for purchase against the floor as the Winter Soldier pinned him effortlessly, and for a moment Steve too struggled to breathe as his brain caught up with what he was witnessing.

 

Clint’s wheezing breaths brought him back to the present, and he threw himself across the room.

 

"Bucky, Bucky stop. He's a friend." He looped an arm around Bucky’s shoulders intending to pry him off the other man, but Bucky had fifty pounds on him, a metal arm, and no qualms regarding grievous bodily harm of his best friend. Before he knew what was happening Steve found himself on the floor halfway across the room, the sharp pain along his ribcage suggesting strong bruising, possibly even fractures.

 

He pushed up from the floor, gasping as white hot pain lanced down his side. "Bucky, please," he begged as the Winter Soldier hauled Clint another few inches up the wall. He didn't turn around, didn't even acknowledge that Steve was speaking. For the first time Steve found himself scared of him - at least above the Potomac it had only been his life that was at stake.

 

"Soldat. Stand down." Natasha’s voice rang clear and calm, her tone unlike anything Steve had ever heard from her before. In one swift movement the Winter Soldier released Clint and took a step backwards, giving the other man the space he needed to collapse to the floor. As soon as Bucky moved away Natasha rushed in between them, crouching down in front of Clint to check him over.

 

Steve stared at the scene in front of him with a strange sense of detachment. Natasha was muttering under her breath to Clint, hands rubbing soothingly up and down his arms as he gasped in breath after shuddering breath. Steve knew that he should go over and check on Clint himself - or maybe just call over since his whole left side was still a throbbing mess of pain - but all he could focus on was the man standing to a soldier's attention on the other side of the kitchen. The stranger wearing his best friend's skin.

 

* * *

 

Natasha and Clint didn't stay long after that, and Steve couldn't really blame them. Once he had gotten his breath back Clint had tried to brush the whole thing off, had even tried to make a joke of it to a stony-faced Bucky. Steve could tell his heart just wasn't in it though, and after an awkward half hour of setting the kitchen straight and a half-hearted attempt at resuming cooking, they collectively called time on the evening. In an uncharacteristic show of affection Natasha kissed Steve on the cheek as he showed them out and made Steve promise to look after himself. It took everything Steve had not to break down right there on his doorstep.

 

That evening found Steve lying across the full length of the couch; the only position that offered his aching (definitely broken, he grudgingly had to concede) ribs some relief. He wasn't really watching the television in front of him, but its dancing pictures at least gave him some semblance of an excuse as to why he didn't notice Bucky entering the room until he was standing right in front of him.

 

"Oh, hey buddy. Want to sit down?" Steve started shifting to make space on the sofa next to him, ignoring the sharp protestations his ribs gave at every small movement. A little pain would be worth it if it meant he got to have Bucky - his Bucky, not the imposter from before - pressed up next to him.

 

Bucky made no move to sit, gave no indication that he had even heard Steve speak. "Why didn't you stop me?" he asked bluntly.

 

"Why didn't I... I don't understand?" Steve replied, confused.

 

"I acted undesirably." Bucky spat the last word like it tasted bad in his mouth. "It's the Handler’s job to ensure that the Asset’s actions comply with protocol."

 

"Bucky... I don't... I'm not your..." Steve started to fumble over yet another explanation of how he wasn't Bucky’s handler, and never would be, but Bucky clearly wasn't done.

 

"You were supposed to stop me, " Bucky interrupted, voice shaking. His shoulders were hunched in on himself, eyes wild like a feral animal. His whole face was twisted up in pain, and a small part of Steve’s brain registered that this was the first real emotion he had seen Bucky express since coming in from the cold. For months Steve had watched desperately for a flash of excitement, anger, _anything_ behind those cold, dead eyes, but now that it was here Steve regretted every idle wish he had ever made, wanted to swallow down every prayer he’d ever whispered. If this was what emotion looked like on Bucky Barnes now, then he wasn’t sure it was worth it.

 

Steve desperately wanted to reach out to him, to wrap him in his arms and banish the hurt that was painted across his features, but he knew that gesture wouldn’t be welcome. “Bucky,” he whispered plaintively, feeling the fractures in his heart shift and lengthen as Bucky ignored his name completely. Bucky had been so proud of the nickname Steve had given him when they were five, had crowed about it on the playground to anyone who would listen. He had refused to answer to James for months, not even to his Pa, insisting that this name was better because his best pal Stevie had picked it. Now it was like it didn’t even belong to him. Maybe it didn’t.

 

“Like I’ve ever been much good at stopping you from doing anything.” Steve muttered, more to himself than anything else, but the words seemed to do something for Bucky. He tilted his head slowly to the left, a little of the tension seeping from his shoulders as his expression slid just slightly along the scale from hurt to curiosity. Steve didn’t know what it was about his words that had caused the shift, but he wasn’t about to ignore it. With a pained huff he pushed himself up straighter on the sofa, gesturing for Bucky to sit down next to him.

 

Bucky didn’t sit, of course, but he did take a small, tentative step forward, which Steve decided to take as a win all things considered. “When we were kids, you were always the one keeping me in line. Well, as much as you could anyways.” A small smile creased at the edge of Steve’s mouth as he remembered the two of them as they had been as kids in the 1920’s; all scruffy hair and scraped knobbly knees. The picture aged a couple of years and suddenly they were a little older, Steve still with his knobbly knees but this time sporting a black eye and split lip. Bucky was crouched in front of him, just on the cusp of becoming the dashingly handsome man the history books remembered him as, one hand holding his jaw steady as the other dabbed at his cuts with a rag doused in iodine. Steve didn’t remember the fight, but he did remember the scolding Bucky had given him after he had dragged his sorry ass home.

 

“I was...well you could say I was a bit of a hellraiser growing up,” Steve said, voice warm and encouraging Bucky to share Steve's memory, since his were clearly still locked away in the depths of his brain somewhere. “I was always getting into scrapes with the other kids on the block, and when I wasn’t getting my ass handed to me I was coming up with some harebrained scheme to get my own back on them. Sometimes you agreed with me … a lot of the time you didn’t.” Steve couldn’t help laughing as his brain supplied him with an image of young Bucky at his most indignant. His eyes flicked towards Bucky in the room in front of him, and the picture was so strikingly different that the laughter instantly stuck and lodged in his throat, forcing him to clear it with a rough cough, “No matter what though, you always had my back. Just like I’ll always have yours. I’m with you to the end of the line, remember?”

 

Bucky’s furrowed brow made it obvious that he didn’t remember, but Steve tried not to dwell on that fact in favour of how Bucky slowly, tentatively took the last step forward to perch awkwardly on the couch next to him.

 

* * *

_**Date** : 22nd August 2016  
_ _ **Mission** : B62X447  
_ _ **Location** : Brooklyn, United States  
_ __ **Handler** : Agent Rogers

 

_Handler is resistant to learning standard Asset protocol, insisting instead that he is a 'friend' from childhood and thus protocol does not apply. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Asset will investigate this hypothesis._

* * *

 

It was about 3am a few weeks later when Steve was startled awake by a crash. He bolted upright in bed, his heart hammering wildly against his ribcage and his senses instantly on high alert, his eyes darting around in the dim light for the source of the noise.

 

He heard a low whimper from the corner, and his whole body tensed ready for a fight before his sleep-addled brain reminded him that he no longer slept alone.

 

When Bucky had first come to live with Steve they had set him up in Steve’s spare room. Sam had insisted that Bucky needed a space that was his and his alone, and given some of the things he had read in the Winter Soldier’s file Steve was in no way inclined to disagree. So Steve had put his workout machinery on craigslist, taken a road-trip to IKEA with Clint and Natasha, and converted his spare room into a perfectly adequate second bedroom. He had even stocked the bookshelf with some of Bucky’s favorite books from their childhood - as far as he was aware they’d yet to be touched, but Steve was sure that when Bucky felt up to reading again he’d appreciate the gesture.

 

Bucky managed two nights sleeping alone before the nightmares started to get really bad.

 

The first time it happened Steve thought that Hydra had somehow managed to break into his apartment to steal Bucky back from him. He had charged into Bucky’s room wearing only boxers and clasping his shield, and stopped dead as he watched in horror as Bucky writhed about on the bed, trapped inside his own brain with only the monsters to keep him company.

 

Steve should have been able to guess really; Bucky would never have made that much noise if somebody had actually been there to take him.

 

They had struggled through almost a month of Steve desperately trying not to fall asleep so that he could be there for Bucky if he needed him, only to wake up in a cold sweat as Bucky’s anguished screams tore through the entire house. Then one morning Steve woke up at 7am when his alarm went off, realizing that he had enjoyed a full 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep for the first time in what felt like forever. He had gotten ready that morning with a spring in his step, fully intending to make Bucky chocolate chip pancakes to celebrate twenty-four hours without nightmares, only to almost trip over the curled up body sleeping just outside his door.

 

Bruce theorized that after seventy years of spending every waking (or non-cryogenically frozen) moment surrounded by people, Bucky’s subconscious wasn’t ready to be alone yet. Steve wasn’t entirely convinced by the reasoning - he hadn’t been tortured or brainwashed and he too hated to spend nights alone - but either way they set up a cot in Steve’s room, and the number of nightmares that woke Steve up plummeted drastically.

 

(Bucky still emerged most mornings looking haggard, the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced with every passing day. Steve tried not to think too hard about what that might mean.)

 

Steve forced himself to breathe slowly until he felt his heart rate start to even out. Then, when he was sure his legs would hold his weight, he slid out of bed and made his way over towards Bucky, making sure to make lots of noise to telegraph his movements as he did so.

 

“Bucky, you alright pal?” he called out as he walked over, not wanting Bucky to wake up with Steve’s face looming over his. That had happened once and had not ended well for either of them. Bucky let out another soft whimper.

 

“S- Sorry,” Bucky’s whisper was so quiet Steve didn’t think he would have heard it without his serum-enhanced hearing. As Steve got closer he saw the strange way that the light from traffic outside was glinting off Bucky’s metal bed-frame, and realized that the crash he had heard had been the frame of the cot hitting the floor. The headboard was twisted and fractured, and Steve was reasonably sure he could see the indent of fingerprints along the metalwork.

 

Bucky was sitting in the middle of the devastation, rocking back and forth with his head in his hands. A dark smudge ran down his right forearm and Steve realized with a horrified start that Bucky was bleeding from a long gash along his flesh arm. Without thinking he started forwards, “Oh Buck, what did you do?”

 

Bucky flinched away from him as he got nearer, clutching his wounded arm to his chest and twisting his head away from Steve so that his long hair fell across his face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he muttered over and over again, craning his body as far away from Steve as he could without moving, and the last remains of Steve’s shattered heart completely disintegrated.

 

“No, no, Bucky, it’s okay.” Steve said, doing his best to keep his voice soothing as he crouched down in front of Bucky, bringing them both to the same eye height. “I’m not mad. You’ve done nothing wrong I promise.” He paused for a moment, but Bucky didn’t move from his hunched posture. “I’m just worried about you buddy, you look like you’ve hurt yourself there. Can I have a look?” Steve reached out towards Bucky’s injured arm but Bucky flinched even farther away, cradling his arm protectively as he peeked out in terror from underneath his hair at Steve.

 

Steve jerked backwards, holding both hands up in the air in surrender. “Ok, ok I don’t have to look, we don’t have to do anything.” If Bucky’s enhanced healing capabilities were anything like Steve’s the wound would be almost completely healed by morning anyway - no sense in putting Bucky through any undue stress if they didn’t need to.

 

With slow, pointed movements, Steve pushed himself to his feet. “I’m going to go make up the bed in your room, okay bud? We can’t have you sleeping in this wreckage now can we?” Steve meant it as a joke, but Bucky simply stared back at him with those bleak, terrified eyes, and Steve had to swallow down the bile that rose in his throat as he was suddenly forced to wonder how and where Hydra had made Bucky sleep in the past. “Are you going to be okay if I leave?” Steve asked more seriously. It was always touch and go what Bucky's mindset would be after a nightmare.

 

If Steve hadn’t been watching Bucky so closely he probably would have missed it. Bucky’s gaze was trained on the floor, his face still mostly shrouded by his hair, but for the briefest of moments his eyes flicked towards Steve’s double bed on the other side of the room.

 

Steve’s heart stuttered in his chest. He didn’t want to presume anything, really he didn’t, but that gesture had made it seem like…

 

“Unless…. Would you rather sleep in my bed. With me?”

 

For a long while Bucky didn’t react, and Steve mentally kicked himself. Bucky was a traumatized, brainwashed ex-Hydra assassin. Steve had read the files, of course he didn’t want to share a bed with him. He was about to take everything back when Bucky jerked his head, just once, in what was unmistakably a nod.

 

“Great!” Steve exclaimed before he could help himself. “I mean, not great, but that’s absolutely fine Buck. We can get you a new cot tomorrow, or not if you don’t want…”

 

Slowly, hesitantly, Bucky pushed himself up from out of the wreckage of his bed. He shuffled over towards Steve’s bed, then paused by its side. He turned his face back towards Steve, his expression hesitant, as if he half expected the offer to be pulled away from him at the last moment. Steve made a shooing motion, and Bucky slid underneath the covers like liquid.

 

He was on Steve’s side of the bed, but since Steve had only started sleeping on that side because it used to be Bucky’s, he supposed that was fair.

 

Steve walked around to the other side of the bed and climbed in, doing his best to keep his movements casual even as his entire body thrummed with nervous energy. It had been over seventy years since he had shared a bed with Bucky, and his base urges clearly hadn’t gotten the memo that this time was going to be nothing at all like the last time they had shared a bed; the night before Bucky had shipped out and all they had wanted to do was remember the touch, taste, curve of the other’s skin before it was gone. (“Not for good, never for good Stevie”, Bucky had whispered promises into Steve’s hair as he buried his face in the curve of Bucky’s shoulder and tried not to cry when he came.)

 

“Night Buck,” Steve said as he firmly clenched his hands in front of him to stop them accidentally wandering during the night.

 

“Night Steve,” came the response, and maybe it wasn’t the Brooklyn-based Stevie that he remembered from the 1930’s, but it was pretty damn close.

 

* * *

_**Date** : 7th September 2016  
_ _ **Mission** : B62X447  
_ _ **Location** : Brooklyn, United States  
_ __ **Handler** : Agent Rogers

 

_Hypothesis is proving promising. If current state continues the Asset is confident that 'friend Steve' can successfully be incorporated into current mission structure as a valuable addition. Termination will not be required._

* * *

 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Isn't that what they always say?

 

Steve had turned down every call for the Avengers to assemble since Bucky had come back to him, but when a swarm of genetically (or magically, nobody could quite agree on that one) enhanced creatures descended on Times Square and started attacking civilians, even his moral compass at it's most flexible couldn't justify him not suiting up.

 

The fight was long, and bloody, and the number of civilian casualties was far too high for even Director Fury to call their eventual victory a success. Tony and Clint both earned themselves an overnight stay in the hospital wing of the Avengers Tower, and Steve only escaped the same fate by arguing - profusely - that his super healing had him covered. By the time he eventually limped through the door of his fifth-storey apartment, he was seriously considering taking up Tony's offer of a permanent suite in the tower, which probably said more about his levels of exhaustion than anything else. All he wanted to do was shower (grime and dirt and blood and shells going off in the background. The air filled with the rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire and the screams of dying men, and isn't it funny how screams sound the same in every language?) and sleep for at the very least the rest of this century.

 

What he certainly did not have the energy to deal with was walking through the doorway and into the utter devastation site that used to be his living room.

 

Steve had his shield held defensively out in front of him before he even realized what he was doing; his adrenaline still spiking high from the events of earlier. He took two cautious steps into the room before noticing Bucky's hunched figure crouched right in the centre of the room, still like the eye of a storm.

 

"Bucky? What happened?" Steve said through gritted teeth, taking another step towards Bucky and lowering his shield ever so slightly. As he got closer he heard Bucky muttering to himself, the words low and unrecognizable. What he did recognize was his iPad in pieces on the floor in front of Bucky, the other man shifting through the various components with the same cold calculation he now addressed the rest of life with.

 

"Bucky, what are you doing?" Steve rephrased, exhaustion seeping into his voice as his brain finally processed the fact that they weren't in any immediate danger.

 

Bucky ignored Steve, his eyes darting across the components one last time before giving a definitive nod. His hand whipped lightning-quick to the side to grab the television remote control off the table next to him, and Steve watched in shock as that too was dismantled in a matter of seconds.

 

"Bucky!" Steve tried again as Bucky started sorting through the remains of their remote, and Bucky's form stilled for just an instant.

 

"Checking for bugs," he said, just loud enough for Steve to catch, before returning his attention to the task in front of him.

 

"Checking for....no, Bucky you don't have to do that." Steve circled around to place himself directly in Bucky's line of sight. Bucky pointedly ignored him, keeping his eyes fixed on the gadgets in front of him. "This place is clean I swear. Natasha and I swept it just last week, don't you remember?" He couldn't quite keep the hysteria out of his voice as the catastrophic events of the day piled right on top of the latent, simmering stress of the past eleven months to form one huge melting pot of over-exhaustion.

 

"Bucky, please," he begged as the other man continued to act like he wasn't even in the room, stripping down every electrical gadget Steve owned piece by agonizing piece. He didn't know what to do, didn't know how to get through to his friend before he took apart their entire lives one television remote at a time and he was So. Damn. Tired.

 

"Soldat, stand down."

 

The words rang through the air, and for a moment Steve wasn't entirely sure whether it was really him that had spoken. But of course there was no-one else in the room, just him and Bucky and those awful, hateful words that he promised himself he would never use hanging between them. For a moment time seemed to freeze, and then in one fluid, graceful movement Bucky stood up, abandoning the electricals on the floor as he finally, finally, turned his thousand yard stare on Steve. And all Steve could do was stare right back.

 

Objectively he knew that his brain should be kicking into high gear right about now. After all, he'd just commanded Bucky, and even worse Bucky had obeyed, and there was so much wrong with that sentence that Steve didn't even know where to start.

 

But for the first time in what felt like forever things were quiet, and beautifully still, and Steve couldn't bring himself to do more than sigh. "Let’s go to bed Buck," he said, deciding that his whole clusterfuck of a situation could wait until morning.

 

By the time they got to the bedroom Steve was practically asleep on his feet. All the adrenaline had rushed out of his body in one fell swoop and left complete, bone-aching tiredness in its wake. If he had been in any way coherent he might have picked up on how Bucky hovered tersely by the doorway, waiting for Steve to climb into bed and wave him over tiredly before joining him. As it was, Steve was asleep before his head even hit the pillow, completely oblivious to the way that Bucky's body remained tense and rigid next to him, the soldier's eyes fixed wide open and alert all the way through to morning.

 

* * *

 

The next morning Steve woke to an empty bed, which made it somehow easier for his subconscious to ignore his actions of the night before. He made it all the way to the kitchen and halfway through his first cup of coffee before the enormity of what he had done hit him so hard in the chest he couldn’t breathe. He closed his eyes and focused on drawing oxygen into his lungs, the way his ma had taught him when his asthma had gotten bad as a kid.

 

In. Out. In. Out.

 

Had he meant to do it? He remembered the bone aching tiredness, the overwhelming noise and then the blessed silence that had followed.

 

In. Out. In. Out.

 

He didn’t remember making a conscious decision to wield his words in the only way guaranteed to harness the Winter Soldier, but he did remember the relief that had flooded through his body when Bucky had obeyed.

 

In. Out. In. Out.

 

Was it really such a bad thing? His mind flashed back to the evening with Clint and Natasha, at the betrayed look on Bucky’s face when he had confronted him afterwards. Maybe this was what Bucky needed to feel safe.

 

In. Out. In. Out.

 

Maybe this was what they both needed.

 

Steve had just about managed to get his breathing back under control when he heard a noise from across the room. He jerked his head up out of his hands to see Bucky hovering by the door, his expression painfully blank as he pierced Steve with those cold eyes of his.

 

Steve took another deep breath and then forced a smile onto his face. “Hey Buck, do you want to come sit down? You look exhausted.”

 

Bucky ignored Steve’s question, just continued to stare at Steve like he had the secrets of the universe tattooed on his forehead. Steve took a second to run his gaze appraisingly over Bucky’s form, saw the way that his body was practically vibrating with tension, swaying ever so slightly from side to side as if he was staying upright through sheer force of will. Steve couldn’t help frowning in concern.

 

“Bucky. Come sit down.”

 

Bucky’s head jerked up, his brow furrowing slightly at the firmness of Steve’s tone even as he silently crossed the room to fold himself into the seat on the other side of the table. Steve paused for a moment, waiting to see whether Bucky would make any further movements. When it became apparent not, he pushed the bowl of fruit in the middle of the table towards Bucky.

 

“Eat. You must be starving.”

 

Mechanically Bucky reached out and picked up the closest item in the bowl; a shiny red apple that had Steve breaking out into a grin before he could help himself.

 

“You used to love apples as a kid,” he said fondly, feeling something almost painful swell in his chest as Bucky slowly returned a stilted smile. It wasn’t quite natural, but Steve was going to take it and hold onto it like the precious gesture that it was.

 

Maybe this really was what what they both needed.

 

* * *

_Date: 15th September 2016_  
_Mission: B62X447_  
_Location: Brooklyn, United States  
_ _Handler: Agent Rogers_

 

~~_I was wrong_ ~~ _._ ~~_The Asset was wrong_ ~~ _. Hypothesis incorrect._

* * *

 

There was really no other way to describe it. Over the course of the next few weeks things somehow, miraculously, started to get better.

 

“ _Bucky. You need to leave the room today. Come join me in the kitchen.”_ Bucky sat opposite Steve at the kitchen table, his gaze appraising as Steve - feeling the silence pressing down on him like an invisible, unspeakable weight - started to regale Bucky with stories from when they were kids. Finally, after what felt like an age, Bucky cracked the smallest of smiles.

 

_“Soldat. You’re exhausted. Get some sleep.”_ Steve woke up to a Bucky without shadows under his eyes for the first time in forever.

 

_“Bucky. It’s been three days. You need to shower.”_ Bucky emerged fresh and faintly steaming, his hair combed and slicked in a way that was so reminiscent of the 1940’s it made Steve’s head spin.

 

_“Soldat. I got you some new clothes. Go try them on.”_ Steve finally got to see Bucky in something other than combat gear. The lack of suspenders in the twenty-first century still threw him sometimes, but Bucky seemed so much more like himself in a soft white shirt and chinos than in black from head to toe.

 

_“Bucky. Let’s watch some TV tonight, you always loved your science fiction.”_ Bucky slouched on the sofa, his posture relaxed and easy. His attention was fixed on the pilot episode of Firefly, his quick eyes absorbing every tiny detail while Steve tried and failed to tear his gaze away from Bucky himself.

 

* * *

_**Date** : 20th October 2016  
_ _ **Mission** : B62X447  
_ _ **Location** : Brooklyn, United States  
_ __ **Handler** : Agent Rogers

 

_New Mission Parameters are clear. Immersion training for undercover role as James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes - childhood friend and former lover of Steven Grant Rogers a.k.a “Captain America” -  is fully underway and progressing well. Handler is providing suitable training material and his depiction of Captain America is passable._

 

_On completion of current mission it is recommended that Agent Rogers be sent for further training in undercover personas, as there have been noticeable inconsistencies concerning his portrayal._

* * *

 

“Bucky!” Steve called from the front door, pitching his voice just like when he was selling war bonds so that it would carry all the way down the corridor to the bedroom. “Natasha’s here. Come out and have dinner with us.” He smiled warmly at the super-spy in question, and stood to the side so that she could enter the apartment. Natasha padded in on silent footsteps, raising a curious eyebrow at Steve as she walked past.  


Steve knew Natasha well enough by now to know when he was getting a full appraisal, and he supposed his current sunny disposition was enough of a contrast to when they had last seen one another that the assessment was fair. He wasn’t worried though. Natasha would understand when she met Bucky again.

 

“Bucky,” he called again with a slight frown as he followed Natasha into the kitchen and saw that Bucky still hadn’t joined them. “Don’t be rude.”

 

He heard the telltale creak of their bedroom door, and then Bucky sauntered into the kitchen all easy grace and charm. “Natasha.” He gave a lazy salute before pulling out one of the chairs, gesturing for her to take it. Steve knew it was considered an outdated gesture here in the twenty-first century, but Bucky of the 1930’s would never have let a classy dame like Natasha get her own chair.

 

Natasha raised her eyebrow again in that inscrutable gaze of hers, but slipped into the proffered seat nonetheless.

 

“Спасибо” She said quietly.

 

“Пожалуйста” Bucky replied automatically, his voice catching at the end when he seemed to realize what he was doing. He quickly let go of the back of Natasha’s chair and sauntered round to the other side of the table.

 

“What are we having?” he asked, stressing the vowels just slightly harder than usual.

 

Steve grinned at Bucky, feeling irrationally like they were sharing some sort of inside joke. “Potato hotpot. Your favourite.”

 

A flicker of incomprehension flashed across Bucky’s features, gone so quickly Steve was almost sure he had imagined it. Before he had time to give it much thought Bucky sprawled backwards on his chair, one arm hooked around the back support as he gave Steve a wide, unabashed grin. “Sounds great, pal.”

 

Steve dished up the food and passed the plates round the table. Natasha accepted hers with a small nod, and started eating quietly, her eyes flicking flintily between the two men seated on either side of her.

 

“Bucky used to love this meal when we were younger, didn’t you Buck?” Steve said happily as he started to tuck in. Bucky gave a vigorous nod before shoving a large forkful into his mouth, making affirmative noises around the mouthful.

 

“His ma would make it every Saturday, and we’d all crowd around this tiny table of theirs. It was tight enough when it was just Bucky, his folks and his three sisters, but then add in my ma and me and was one hell of a squeeze, wasn’t it Buck?”

 

Bucky nodded vigorously again, but his eyes didn’t quite have the sparkle that Steve would have expected that story to illicit. Bucky always used to joke that if his folks ever had another kid they’d have to start eating in shifts.

 

He opened his mouth to ask if Bucky was okay, but before he could say anything Natasha put her fork down with a loud clatter.

 

“So guess who’s back in the hospital after getting into the world’s most ridiculous pissing contest with Tony? Honestly, if the man’s going to convince Clint to jump off the side of a building he could at least have the decency to build him a pair of wings like Sam’s....”

 

* * *

 

Steve walked Natasha to the door at the end of the evening feeling high on the unbeatable combination of good food, good wine and good company. He was sure that he was grinning like an idiot, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

 

“It was great to see you this evening, Natasha, really great,” he said as he bent to give her a gentle hug. Natasha returned the gesture, but her movements were stiffer than Steve had come to expect, and when he drew back he saw that she looked concerned.

 

“Steve…” Natasha began, her voice soothing like she was afraid Steve might spook at what she had to say. “How is Bucky doing, really?”

 

Steve frowned. Whatever he had been expecting Natasha to say, it certainly hadn’t been that. “Bucky? He’s doing great.” He laughed, surprising himself when the sound came out booming and loud. “Were we at the same table just now? You saw him, it’s just like old times.”

 

“Steve,” Natasha said again, and this time her voice sounded almost pitying. “You know that’s not really Bucky in there right? He’s been through so much, more than you -  or even I - can even begin to comprehend. What Hydra put him through? I don’t think it’s a case of just snapping back to the good old days after that.”

 

Steve felt his happy, precious bubble start to deflate in his chest and he took a wounded step backwards, letting his hands fall from Natasha’s side. “I don’t … why would you say something like that?”

 

Natasha’s face twisted into a grimace and she took a cautious step towards him. “Come on Steve, think about it.  You’re not the same man who went into the ice in 1945 are you?”

 

Steve turned back towards the kitchen, his expression smoothing into a fond smile as he thought about everything he’d thought he’d lost over the past seventy years, and everything he’d miraculously won back over the past seven weeks.

 

“I am when I’m with him.”

 

(He was so busy listening to the sounds of Bucky shuffling round the kitchen that he completely missed Natasha’s horrified reaction).

 

* * *

 

On his better days he was able to rationalize it as a way to help Bucky acclimatise to this brave new century. He remembered how lost, how confused he had felt when he first came out of the ice, and how he had retreated into Captain America to help drag himself from one day to the next. He convinced himself that if playing the role of Captain America helped him to survive the bright lights of the twenty-first century, then maybe, just maybe, playing the role of Captain America’s best friend would help Bucky too.

 

On his worse days he was just happy to have his Bucky back. He couldn’t bring himself to care how he got him.

 

* * *

 

“You look exhausted Buck, are you sure you’ve been getting enough sleep?” Steve’s brow furrowed in concern as, for the third time in as many minutes, Bucky’s body jerked forcefully awake on the sofa next to him. A loud crash from the television - some dumb action flick that Steve had put on and then promptly ignored in favour of watching the far more interesting distraction that was Bucky next to him - caused Bucky to flinch and curl back into the sofa behind him. Steve watched anxiously as Bucky closed his eyes, taking three slow, calming breaths before reopening his eyes and turning to face Steve with a rueful grin.

 

“Sorry buddy,” Bucky said, his voice lilting and cresting effortlessly with that same New York accent Steve could feel in his blood, “I guess beating your ass at table tennis takes more out of a person than I thought.”

 

Steve couldn’t help laughing at that, the knot in his chest loosening as he reached over to squeeze Bucky’s shoulder fondly. “Alright hot-shot, we’ll see who beats who in our rematch later, huh?”

 

They still hadn’t quite managed to make it out of the apartment together yet, but the more Bucky came back to him the less Steve felt the need to leave this perfect little bubble they had made for themselves anyway. It was all quiet on the Avengers front, Natasha had been called away on some urgent spy business, and Steve had stopped inviting Sam over since the last time he came around, took one look at Bucky and dragged Steve off to have what Steve thought was an incredibly inappropriate conversation about bringing Bucky down to have a chat with come of his colleagues at the VA.  Steve didn’t understand why Sam insisted on bringing up a past that would only cause Bucky more hurt, couldn’t he see how much better Bucky was doing?

 

As far as Steve was concerned he and Bucky could grow old together inside these four walls, and he would die a much happier man than he had any right to be.

 

Bucky tried to smile back at Steve, but the gesture was interrupted by a stifled yawn that he smothered through what looked like sheer force of will, the corner of his mouth twitching erratically as he pressed his lips together in a thin white line.

 

“Why don't you lie down for a bit, Bucky? I can wake you up in an hour or so.” Steve shifted towards the armrest to give Bucky more space, using his free hand to grab a pillow from behind him to place in his lap while at the same time pressing gently with the hand still on Bucky’s shoulder to encourage him to lie down. Rather than easy compliance, though, his gesture was met with resistance. He looked up to see Bucky wide-eyed and tense, his whole body primed like an animal the moment before flight.

 

Steve frowned, disappointed at the sudden lack of trust reflected in Bucky’s eyes. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all, didn’t Bucky remember all the times they had fallen asleep curled up together during the war?. He pressed again with his hand, this time applying just a bit more pressure with his thumb to the soft pad of muscle. “Lie down Bucky, you’ll feel better afterwards. I promise.”

 

For a long moment it looked like Bucky was still going to resist, and Steve’s heart fluttered wildly in his chest in horror at the idea of Bucky not playing along.

 

Steve opened his mouth, the beginnings of the word “Soldat…” curling on his tongue, but before he could say anything the tension in Bucky’s body seemed to give out all at once. He folded himself up on the sofa in one graceful motion, his head pillowed comfortably in Steve’s lap.

 

Steve breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the tension leave his body along with Bucky’s. He brought his hand to card through Bucky’s long hair, working out some of the tangles as gently as he could. They should really think about cutting it soon. Bucky had always spent hours fussing over his hair when they were kids, Steve was sure he was desperate to get it properly styled again. Plus, he had it on good authority that 40’s looks were making a comeback.

  
“See, doesn’t that feel better?” he crooned, smiling softly as Bucky turned his head to nuzzle further into the pillow beneath him, his cheek rubbing teasingly against his crotch as he did so.

 

“Yes Stevie,” came the muffled response.

 

* * *

_**Date** : 27th October 2016  
_ _ **Mission** : B62X447  
_ _ **Location** : Brooklyn, United States  
_ __ **Handler** : Agent Rogers

 

_Mission preparation had progressed to advanced relationship stages. The Asset will start preparing the body at 0800 and 1800 daily in anticipation of coital training with the Handler._

* * *

 

Soldat… Bucky… Bucky… Soldat…

  


Bucky… Soldat… Soldat… Bucky…

 

* * *

 

In the end - when Steve trudged in from a long day of saving New York from the most recent enemy invasion, traipsing blood and mud behind him in a long line all the way from door to sofa - it didn’t really matter that Bucky never believed that Steve actually was Steve.

 

Because by that point - when Bucky materialized behind him, kneading the aches and pains from Steve’s poor abused shoulder muscles with a skill that went far beyond natural talent, Steve’s head tipping back with a blissful groan and “That feels so good Soldat,” slipping off his tongue as easy as breathing - Steve really wasn’t Steve any more anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was basically the result of multiple late night conversations between myself and Sockwizard, which started with "How much can we make everything hurt" and ended with "Oh god what have we done to these poor characters". And then of course I had to go and actually write it because that's the sort of person I am.
> 
> This is comfortably the most morally ambiguous thing I've written, so I hope I've tagged accordingly, but if people feel like additional tags need to be added please let me know!
> 
> As always, thanks have to go to my amazing beta Lilinas, who isn't even in the Captain America fandom but was as awesome as ever when I threw this at her with literally zero warning and went "Help!".


End file.
